Ben Gazarra was an incredible talent. Following the popularisation of method acting by Brando and Montgomery Clift, Ben Gazarra made his film premier in Jack Garfein’s underrated directorial debut; The Strange One. He should have been a bigger star. He was a gifted actor with a natural, instinctive feel for performance and he had charisma to spare, yet he shunned screen acting in favour of the stage.

He originated the role of Brick Pollitt in the 1955 Broadway classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof but left the play seven months later to take on the role of Johnny Pope, the drug addict in A Hatful of Rain, which earned him the first of three Tony Award nominations.

Gazarra arguably produced his most powerful screen performances under the sensitive direction of his close friend John Cassavetes. Later in his career he developed a reputation as versatile character actor, starring in a string of indie classics including Dogville, Happiness, and The Big Lebowski, starring as seedy Porn tycoon Jackie Treehorn.

Anyone remotely interested in screen acting should make it their priority to seek out The Strange One, it’s a truly phenomenal performance.

This is just a quick blog to promote the services of Ashwin Kumar.

We’ve worked with Ask on a number of projects for Sky and he is fast developing a name for himself as one of the most talented storyboard and concept artists around. The guy is ridiculously good and works at a God-like speed.

He’s currently producing concept art for us at the moment for a new project we’re developing for Sky so as soon as we get the all clear we’ll post some of this on the blog.

In the mean time check out his website and a few examples of his work below:

http://digitalash.yolasite.com/

We have a couple of films that are finally near completion now and we’ll be sending them around the festival circuit.

The first film is called Fun Things to do on a Sunday Afternoon and centres around a couple of men who embark on a jovial killing spree on one particularly slow Sunday afternoon. Starring William Croft, Chris Fulwell and Emily Louisa Rayner, the film was shot a couple of years ago but has taken a long time to sort out a few technical niggles. It was shot a Sony PMW EX3 using a Letus Ultimate depth-of-field adaptor and a set of Zeis Primes. Visually it looks great, and the actors were all terrific and fantastic to work with.

All that’s left is to throw on credits and then it’s finally ready to hit festivals. In the mean time check out a few of the screens below: